Did Flint get a back-handed compliment of sorts from Sen. Barack Obama Monday?

Genesee County Treasurer Dan Kildee thinks so.

What many expected to be a short, banners and bunting, rah-rah rally Monday at Kettering University, turned out to be more like an hour-long political science lecture delivered by Professor Obama, who used the occasion to deliver what some are calling a major policy speech in point by point detail.

It was engaging stuff, especially if you're a policy wonk, but the event was starkly different than past visits by Democratic presidential candidates, such as Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

For one thing, Obama -- whose campaign is said to be unusually punctual -- was on time.

Contrast that to Clinton's visit here years ago. I remember waiting hours past the original start time in a hot scrubby field near downtown for the man from Arkansas to arrive.

Or contrast it to when Gore visited in 2000 and brought the pop group the Goo Goo Dolls with him. Together they staged a mass rally downtown with 14,000 people waving banners, signs
and flags. Music blared. Speakers barked. It was a razzle-dazzle event.

The crowd for Monday's sober speech, however, was strictly limited to 1,400 or so people, even though there was room for far more. Signs were prohibited. Flags were nowhere to be seen. There were no bands -- Goo Goo, marching or otherwise. No attempt was made to whip
up the crowd before the speech. In fact, there was none of the usual campaign folderol at all.

Ah, but there was that lecture.

Kildee says it was a good thing.

"Normally what we get is the campaign trying to drive up enthusiasm. I thought it was really important that Barack Obama's major (new) policy address was done in Flint, Michigan. It
recognizes the fact that Flint is Ground Zero for the economic troubles of America."

Kildee says people hereabouts will look back one day with pride that Obama chose Flint to deliver that speech. Which may or may not be the case. Personally, I don't think Obama
chose to give that speech here because of our vast, varied and ceaseless economic woes. Believe it or not, our kind of misery isn't unique. It's all across the Midwest.

If anything, I suspect Sen. Obama was merely trying out some themes he would repeat in a larger, more media-intensive speech later that night in Detroit, the one where he received Al Gore's endorsement.

Still, it's clear that Flint is on Obama's radar screen, and that can't help but be a good thing in a city (and state) all but forgotten by the White House these past eight years.

If there was any message at all to be taken from Obama's visit here so soon after becoming the presumptive nominee, I think it's that he sees Flint, and Michigan, as important in the coming election.

Kildee says he spoke briefly with Obama Monday and "it was pretty clear he has every intention to come back to Flint (prior to the election)."

If so, that's great. There's nothing like the excitement of a presidential campaign.

Next time, though, lets hope he lets a few more locals hear him speak. And that he lets them have a little more fun.